Chancellor Gates participates in briefing on international research

International briefingChancellor Robert Gates (left) listens to an observation from Steve Hanson, vice provost for international affairs and director of the Reves Center for International Studies. Hanson gave the introduction at a Feb. 6 briefing for Gates, who has served as secretary of defense and director of national security.
Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Policy-relevant researchSue Peterson, co-director of William & Mary's Institute for the Theory & Practice of International Relations, explains the purpose and mission of ITPIR. Three of the four presentations at the briefing to Chancellor Gates were associated with ITPIR.
Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Fish and conflictA team from the Project on Environment, Food and Conflict briefs Chancellor Robert Gates on their work in African. From left: Colleen Devlin '13, Sarah Glaser of VIMS, Cullen Hendrix of the government department and Catherine Mahoney '15.
Photo by Stephen Salpukas

William
& Mary Chancellor Robert M. Gates ’65 L.H.D. ’98 was among a small group
that received a briefing of four current globally focused research projects at
the university.

Three
of the four projects presented in the Feb. 6 briefing were student-faculty
research projects affiliated with the university’s Institute for the Theory and
Practice of International Relations (ITPIR). Sue Peterson, co-director of
ITPIR, outlined the goals of the institute during the briefing.

“The
institute was founded on the premise that international relations scholars can
and should create knowledge that is useful for policymakers,” she said. “We
provide a home for integrative interdisciplinary research programs that use
social-science methods to address some of the most challenging international
issues.”

The
three ITPIR presentations covered
the Project on Environment, Food and Conflict (ENFOCO); the Geospatial Analysis
of Aid; and the Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS) within a
Broader International Security Program.

Mike
Tierney, co-director of ITPIR, explained that the three student-faculty
projects presented are examples of internationally focused and
interdisciplinary initiatives that involve researchers in the natural sciences
and the social sciences who are doing “serious research to address real world
problems.”

Students
involved in the ITPIR research presented, along with their faculty mentors. The
ENFOCO presentation outlined the group’s GIS-driven investigation of the
relationship among fisheries, food security and social conflict in the
communities surrounding Africa’s Lake Victoria.
The Geospatial Analysis of Aid group focused on the use of GIS mapping
to illustrate international aid as an agent of land cover change in a number of
global locations. The PIPS presenters discussed the success of the program as a
policy “think tank” for undergraduates and outlined a plan to build on the
university’s current international security initiatives to develop a formal
International Security Program.

The
fourth presentation, not associated with ITPIR, was from the National Security
Archive Project, which uses documents from former Latin American military
regimes and from declassified U.S. government documents to study the history of
Cold War-era repression and violence.
The research from this project has been used in scholarly publications
and in court cases to prosecute individuals accused of human rights violations.

Gates
listened attentively to the introductions and the four presentations, taking
notes and making the occasional comment. At the conclusion of the briefing, he
asked a number of questions of the presenters and made suggestions on the
research. The chancellor’s resume includes serving as both U.S. secretary of
defense and director of central intelligence—in addition to being past
president of Texas A&M University. He has the ultimate insider’s view on
international matters and was able to give the researchers advice on how to
increase the relevance of their projects. In most cases, the presentations
struck a chord with the chancellor.

For
instance, Gates responded to a presentation by members of the geospatial analysis
of aid project. Stuart Hamilton of the university’s Center for Geospatial
Analysis said that on one occasion he witnessed a crew funded by one U.S.
private foundation planting trees on one side of an Ecuadorian estuary, while
on the other side, another aid group was funding the bulldozing of trees.

“That
kind of opened my eyes a little bit,” Hamilton said. Gates noted that such
examples of counterproductive projects are all too common in the delivery of
foreign aid.

“Your
example of one group of aid people planting trees on one side of the river and
another cutting them down on the other is totally characteristic of
Afghanistan,” Gates said, “because you’ve got probably fifty countries engaged,
countless NGOs, and nobody knows what anybody else is doing.”

The
chancellor cited an Afghanistan aid project that built a road that ended
abruptly at the Pakistan border, to the bemusement of the local population.
“The Pashtuns don’t even recognize that border,” he said. “It’s Pashtuns on
both sides of the border, and yet….”

Gates
said that one of his hopes as secretary of defense—only partially realized—was
to have a senior international person to coordinate the aid projects in
Afghanistan. He suggested that the researchers expand their project to include
a component that addresses coordination. He added that he had urged officials
in the state department and other federal agencies to figure out how to tap
into expertise of the researchers already working in the world’s trouble spots.

“A
lot of universities have agriculture experts all over Iraq and Afghanistan and
they’re accustomed to living in tough places and to being in dangerous places,”
Gates said. “So the irony is that you have a lot of university faculty where
aid workers and state department people wouldn’t go.”

Gates
expressed interest in the involvement of students in the research projects. He
asked in particular about the two students who worked with ENFOCO.

“I’d
be interested to hear from the two students who were in Uganda about their
on-the-ground experience,” Gates said, “just in terms of how long you were
there, some of the challenges you faced day-to-day.”

Colleen
Devin ’13 and Catherine Mahoney ’15 took turns relating their daily experiences
collecting data. The locals were helpful for the most part, except at one beach
which Mahoney said seemed to be under the control of a man she described as a
“boss of the beach,” who was “intimidating to say the least.”

Speaking
before the briefing, Tierney said he believed the presentations would be of
particular interest to Chancellor Gates. William & Mary’s student-faculty
research model was lauded by Steve Hanson, vice provost for international
affairs and director of the Reves Center, who delivered introductory remarks
before for the briefing.

“International
relations is something, Chancellor Gates, that your own career has
personified,” Hanson said. “We think that we’ve set up a model for
international relations teaching and research which is unique in the world.
Students are at the center of what we do—teaching through research.”

Hanson
pointed out the numerous student-faculty collaborations that have resulted in
the publication of books and articles in peer-reviewed journals, noting that
William & Mary students are typically involved in all areas of research,
from conceptualization through data collection and analysis.

“And
this is something that you don’t find at many bigger research universities, nor
at smaller liberal arts colleges less focused on research,” Hanson told
Chancellor Gates.

In
her overview of ITPIR, Peterson noted that the institute is home to seven
interdisciplinary, student-faculty research projects, including AidData, which
recently attracted $25 million in support from USAID to establish the AidData
Center for Development Policy.

At
the end of the briefing, Rector Jeffrey B. Trammell ’73 commented on the high
esteem that the international relations efforts of William & Mary enjoys at
the highest level of government and academia. He referred to the November
presentation in the Ben Franklin Dining Room of the State Department in which
the AidData award was announced. William & Mary student Alena Stern ’12
represented AidData and the university and made quite an impression.

“Mark
Yudof, who is president of the University of California, leaned over to me and
he said, ‘Jeff, how do you find these students?’” Trammel said. “I said, Mark,
we’ve got about three thousand of them if you want to come down and meet some
of them.”

Gates
summed up the briefing by pointing out the potential market advantage of the
William & Mary style of student-faculty research in a time of tight
funding.

“There
is a movement in this country about higher education that holds that teaching
benefits students and research by faculty does not,” the chancellor said. Such
a notion is not valid at William & Mary, he added, and noted that faculty
and administrators should make sure that opinion leaders and the media are
aware of it.

“The
kind of thing you’ve described here is the kind of proof positive of how
integrated teaching and research are in a great university,” he said. “What is
going on in research on one day is in the classroom the next.”